Korean Fashion

So like in Japan, I’ve been meaning to write a post about fashion here. I think Japan inured me to a certain level of craziness because the women seem less oddly dressed to me. And when I think about it objectively, I don’t think that some of the stuff they were is any less crazy. But I do notice that quite a few women just wear jeans/shorts/fairly normal skirt and a t-shirt. Some even where tennis shoes, although heels are far more likely. As in Japan, women here have got amazing ankles because they will wear heels everywhere. And I think it is more impressive here because I think Seoul at least is far more hilly and steep at points than either Tokyo or Kyoto.

Koreans are very into enjoying the natural environment (which is a very cool trait of the culture). So you often see people in hiking gear on the trains, heading out to the outskirts of Seoul to hike (or doing some urban hiking). Older, retired people in particular seem to embrace this as a pastime which is pretty awesome. So hiking/sporting gear is always an option for people to wear.

Women do wear some crazy stuff though. They are into very feminine clothes like in Japan; they just don’t layer as much. And I don’t see as much lace…but I do see a lot of floral prints and very, very cute things. Both with heels and flats, there is this style of shoe that is very popular in that it wraps around the ankle and zips up in the back. You can tell who has bought the good shoes and who hasn’t because the ones with cheap knock-offs will leave the back unzipped and have band-aids on the back of their feet. One other thing that I should mention about women’s clothing is that they are not afraid to wear short shorts or skirts here. I have seen a lot of shorts and skirts that I think most Americans would view as inappropriately short around the city. The women here are thin enough to carry it off (usually) but still…really short. However, they don’t really show cleavage at all here. In fact, most women keep their shoulders covered even. So legs are okay to show but not upper body.

As for men, there are some interesting styles with them too. Businessmen wear suits obviously, but they often wear these shiny suits that I find odd. Men also commonly carry bags around with them that are essentially purses. I hate purses in general so I think it looks exceptionally weird for a guy to have a nice bag. Casually, men here tend to wear very fitted clothes (sometimes to the point of being tight but usually not). This has the effect of making the men here seem very, very thin and (to me anyway) fragile. The people here are often very skinny anyway and wearing such fitted clothes just accentuates it. I think in the US guys generally don’t try to stress their skinniness if they are skinny so it seems very odd that they do it here. I feel like I could break these guys if I sat on one of them.

I’ve already mentioned polos so I guess I will leave it at that for now. It will be interesting to see what I think of Japanese fashion when I return there later this week. I wonder if it will seem less crazy to me the second time around.